Something whirred in him, his eyes moved and he started to talk. “I come not to bandy words,” he said. “I come not to oil my horse or have his hoofs filed down. I come not to tilt against Launch Switch Valley even, if all goes well, although I’m sure it and almost all the lands I’ve passed through should feel the sting of my lance! But all that must wait for another time, for the heart is gone out of me for the nonce.” The whirring ceased, he stopped talking and held up his heart. “It hurts too much inside,” he said, the whirring again on a little, “too much to stand, inside.”
What a man has to take! What a man has to hear! Oh, the imagined troubles of the world! I came out of my peep-box, for I wasn’t scared of him now. What he needed, I suspected, was to get with the Greater Reality. He had probably lost a dream or two, flubbed up a joust, or some other petty something had given him heart pains. Maybe a lady of his fancy had jammed her ON switch to OFF and wouldn’t give him the GO. But to worry about it—that could only come in Evol. “Would you like to tell me what gnaws your happiness, what vast dragons of smoke and flame are prowling across your pink moon-towns, what weird wind of witches’ doings is blowing smog upon your gay outlooks?” Drawing on all my powers I tried the knightly beautiful manner of talking, because I thought it would please him. But I don’t believe it did; I believe it angered him. I half expected him, any time, to lift that tall metal horse to action for a leap over my walls. Instead morosely, he fiddled with the settings of his heart, trying to get it more comfortable, I supposed, and probed at me with his death-taken disdainful eyes.
“When you talk about her,” he said, whirring away hotly, “don’t use words like gnaw and witches’ doings and clouds. I’ll thank you to be more respectful, or I’ll put my heart back in, though it hurt worse than a million hells’ burnings, and we’ll see who’s got a Stronghold!” I was too stunned to react. I didn’t even laugh. So he really thought he had a chance down in this country! But I didn’t become angry. Who can be angry with the hopeless?
“So it’s woman trouble? I mean, your lady—she has chosen a stronger knight?”
He lowered his head, from the waist bent down toward his horse and looked at the ground for a long time, as if searching for some YES answer. When he straightened, I thought he must be lifting all the heavy sky overhead up a higher inch, or so. “When the woman goes, the man is gone in my country. There is no heart of man but woman’s heart must beat its rhythm too, or he cannot be whole man. Oh, there was time when I and my Lanire had the same heart settings to multiply our strengths. Riding out to tournaments I would feel her rhythms coming into me, feel her heart wheels turning into mine, her valves opening and closing as mine did, until there was no knight who could stand against the Golden Knight. She was gold and blue then, so I wore golden armor and her blue lacy favors, and Tronser was a golden horse. The three of us and Greatness were one thing then in Evol-on-the-Coast—the gold and blue Lanire, I and Tronser.”
He stopped; the whirring went to a grindy moan, and then nothing. I looked at him and I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to laugh or whether that itchy burny feeling was a tear deep in my flesh-strips trying to bring my eyes rain. My nature being now of Moderan, usually there is no trouble with romance, and the Greater Reality takes up my best thinking time. And yet—and yet—at times, at small fearful times, a nagging something filters into my new-metal brain and probes there until I am no longer sure I’ll live forever with my “replacement” new-metal alloys, and I am no longer sure of the exact validity of the Greater Reality. At such times I am betrayed into questions that should hold no interest for me. “Who was the great knight who beat the Golden Knight? What the great beauty of his lady? And he must have been horsed on quite a horse—a stallion of steel and dragons, if better than your Tronser!”
“He was not a great knight,” he answered me. “He had no beauteous lady. And if you say he rode a tall black horse—well, that would be mostly fancy. But I was not on any field that he wasn’t there against me. Riding down to tilt he was always there in range, or close alongside. And even in my bed before the great engagements, when I’d feel my heart strong and ready and gathering strength from her heart, he’d be right outside my window, watching me like a jealous dog. And then we’d go saddle Tronser, and he, that Thing, would watch us; he’d watch the testing of lances.”
“For a knight,” I murmured, completely taken in by the intensity of his manner, “he behaved right strangely.”
“He was not true knight!” he shrieked. “He was a cur, a dog. He was a long black rat sneaking death out after the sun went down. His greatest jealousy was when we were on top. Oh, he moved against us then, he ran against us then. And finally he got my Lanire, and now he must get me.”
I thought of a fearsome monster ravaging a lady on a coast in Moderan and I said aghast, “He’s got your lady, and you’re here, the Golden Knight, gabbing with me!?”
He didn’t answer me right off. Pain lines were in the flesh-strips his face showed, and he was running through the full range-change of his heart’s settings. “Not yet,” he kept saying to himself, “not yet. I guess never. It’s no use.” Then he turned to me, and I saw some cavern had got him; some place too darkly-deep for his sick and dead-fish eyes was pulling down his brain. “Talk to me of great knights,” he cried. “Talk to me of the sun measuring us with fire and shadows. Talk to me of that endless sand-grain storm and ticking of the sky. Have you counted the snow? Lately? Lanire! Lanire! Lanire—Have you seen her lately? I have not! I only feel her heart in its great pain.”
Then he fell down from his horse, and I thought maybe he was dying as he rolled. But he was not, and I forgave him the indignity of his pain, sensing how great was his need. When he arose from his rolling in my yard and was once more mounted up on Tronser, he was again the complete knight. “Forgive me,” he said, “if I have shamed your sense of seemly conduct. I like to feel it was not entirely ignoble what I just then did, though I must have looked quite undone, so all unhorsed and all. But falling and rolling on the ground for one you love so much is a sweet pride’s falling. Perhaps it is meant for the highly mounted to do that at least once before they go. And now we’ll say no more about humility.”
His mouth closed down like a trap catching the air, and I thought, listening to that deadly silence, that perhaps he would not whir and talk again. But he did, soon, almost pleasantly, though with something of the quality of someone discussing the details of a battle lost over a thousand years ago. “You see, a part of her heart gave way with the passage of time, and when they made repairs it changed the settings of her range-change until they no longer match mine. We no longer complement each other, and when we try to it brings only great pain. In my country hearts are matched only once, and that when we are young and our flesh hearts are being ‘replaced’ with the greater-lifetime new-metal ones compulsory to Moderan. And then when something happens to alter one or both of the new hearts, it would be a very great miracle if ever they were truly matched again. I had thought I and Lanire might be that miracle, but—well, I guess not. I thought I’d stop here on the brink of Launch Switch Valley and wait to make one more try. You see, today they were to adjust her again—the last time. It is past the hour of the heartsmith’s tinkering and I have just run through the full range of the changes. I felt only pain.”
Somehow I half expected him to fall down and roll on the ground again. But he didn’t. He held, rigid and brave as a statue threatened with the indignity of birds. After awhile his mouth hinges snapped like a couple of Little Wreck missile switches going to ON, and whirringly he said, “I always somehow knew there must be an end; all greatness, all love, all things must feel the sandy coast slip out. And there you are, you’re in the bath, the cold sea of Ending that washes us to bigger sea storms than we are trimmed and lashed for. But though I’m sick with riding and the pain, I will sail on, my horse aswim in Ending . . . But my brain jogs! Open your gates! I will bother you no more. And Lanire! Lanire no more! . .
. It’s onward!”
So I watched him go, head up and lance up and Tronser full ahead. I knew he was doing what he had to do, for his type of man, and I won’t say I didn’t feel a little thrill of unexplainable deep pride, watching him sweep full atilt, and oh, so hopelessly, toward Launch Switch Valley. And I knew—for him—he’d won, somehow won, when I saw that little puff of smoke, for a moment solidified into a definite shape, high over the Valley, a horse and its hopeless rider at lance point with the sky.
REUNION
IT WAS back in the times when the hours were shooting me down daily, by the minutes, by the seconds, that I had seen him last . . . a long long span ago. We were both flesh then and he was stronger than I, flesh stronger, will stronger, and firmer in faith and mind. He had battle dreams then of how to win with the flesh, how to conquer through to the soul, how to go up at last to the Street where the round Smiles sat beatific all folded in wings and the blissful hands stroked gold, for certainly the harps would be gold. Yes, he went with the big Paper Shield, the promises couched in the Word, and I said NO! And we parted, though we had been close.
It wrenched me to part from this man, for we had indeed been close, far closer than friends, nearer the battlefield troops who had divided a bomb blast together and somehow lived. Yes, we had divided our own bomb blast together and somehow lived, the terrible bomb blast of a childhood of fear. And we had lived to it different. He had become stronger in faith, more reliant and sure of the Promises, the things that couldn’t be proved, but were there, surely there—he said. I became one to question; all shaken, I needed the things I could touch. With the littlest hint of a threat I would reach for the ball peen of steel to hammer-stroke the Insolent Face of the Fears, not talk of a Beautiful Hour. So we were different who had once been much the same. Our lives went their different ways.
I came over to New Processes Land to become mostly “replacements” and he stayed with the big Paper Shield, the Word and the long pulpit-fight for souls. And now, after all the long span, to see him once again—the comparisons!—it filled me with certain dread. But there was no mistaking—it was not a flesh mutant, it was not a vegetable walking, it was not a masquerade. It was what it was. Dreadfully. As soon as he came on the Warn—
So I took me a calmness bath with the hot rays and the cold. I put the Small Noises on high. I dialed the bravery poems out of the Stronghold wall and thought of all the lines that might somehow help me now, all of the high words of the mind in anguish and courage set on TRY. For I had known he must one day come to where I cowered in my innermost Stronghold den, perhaps even in the cowardly-careful peep-box of steel. Even in the days of my highest triumphs, when many a fortress rocked from my Big War guns and my Stronghold was winning, I had had this whiplash of dread. Some time to be visited, and evaluated, by the Calm Eyes looking—yes, I knew.
What could I say when he came? How set the wide-range mechanized sight of New Processes Land to stare such a calm look back? What tapes would I use to beat his arguments down to our plastic-yard-sheet ground? I would not blast him out on the open reaches as he came on in, bleep and bleep and bleep, the soft flesh-sound on the Warner like a faucet in old days leaking the night hours down, when you could not sleep—bleep and bleep and bleep. No, I would not blast him. Though I could, easily could.
Why would I not? How easy to blast him and have done with one whiplash of dread. Out of all the whiplashes one cancel to give just that much more time to practice to be brave for the others. As simple as one small gun going, a little flick of a steel thumb at a knob, and the bleep and bleep and bleep must be gone from my Warner potential, gone from my memory—GONE! But would it? NO. Not gone from my memory, unless I tore out MEMORY and cast it forever out. And I could not do that. NO! Too much depended—all the splendid place and the great gain, all New Processes Land was built upon memory. Was it not? YES! All New Processes was an escape from old, remembered things, and implicit in the very escape was the memory. No, I could not throw out MEMORY from the banked tapes in my mind. So I lived with remembering and the many dreads.
And this, save death, was the blackest prince of dreads, the one that dragged me kicking, crumbling up inside, steel-hollow and steel-weak, with the scream tapes going, with the coward times full high, out of all my triumph beds. DOUBT. Doubt of my own worthiness, doubt of the rightness of my choice of the new-metal steel adventure, doubt of how I would stand comparisons now—doubt Doubt DOUBT! Why had I not killed him a long long time ago—this measurer, this yardstick?
Yes, I had a chance once. I believed I had a chance once. If I had killed him clean when I killed me, the soft, pulpy and flesh-down-burdened me, and came to New Processes Land to take up my steel parts—it might have worked. Or why had I not brought him along? Well, there were reasons—REASONS: Why does not one, one day, one sportive full-blown decision-type Accomplishment Day, pick up a full-grown mountain and cast it into the sea? REASONS!
Certainly the poems out of the wall were not helping me much now. All the high words of soul were not succeeding in putting me back together where I waited all crumpled-up and broken-wide in my fears. My calmness bath of the hot rays and the cold had failed me a greater more dismal fail than it had ever failed me before. I looked at my steel palms, for indeed it felt as though they were sweating. But was that not silly? Steel palms nervously sweating!? Or was it silly? This was the ultimate dread, save one, save ONE—
So how did he find me? I pressed all the buttons for flags, I flicked all the switches for noise, I turned on the dancers. I let a flurry of balloons go up through my armored roof, up through the gun lids. I filled a picnic sky with soft eagles. I turned on the rainbow air and fixed him a holiday. For he was a special man. Amidst that carnival he found me as two panic eye slits looking, wide-range, out of a peep-box of steel.
“Sorrow to sorrow!” So he said as he came up toward my eyes—in the shimmering haze of my fears and trembling reluctance, a beautiful flesh-form walking, and YES! he had on no clothes. I had left the main gates open. But I had not meant to let him know so exactly how I could not face him well. Oh sometimes in my panic times, in my own personal Nation of Dread, I shrink to less than a hero. “Sorrow to Sorrow,” he said again as he came on slowly—sadly, it seemed—walking toward the eye slits.
He was a beautiful man and by some miracle in agelessness he appeared not much older than when I had left him, a long long span ago. Indeed he seemed in many ways but a picture of me before I had crossed down for steel, and yes, we had been in appearance once quite the same. Was it but a copy of me before the new-metal steel adventure? How my head ached now from the steel drums that would not stop beating!
As I moved out to meet him there was a wild hollow sound in both of my new-metal ears, but my eyes held to his steady look. “Sorrow to sorrow?” I said, and he said, “Yes! And doubt.” Then suddenly, strangely, there was no distance at all between us as we stood there and wept and said nothing. He seemed to be weeping real tears from eyes that were a dark depthless stare, while I used the mechanical tear bags with my wide-range mechanized sight, in the manner of New Processes times. But my hurt and my deep anguish were surely not less than his, that day of our reunion, as I held him so gently, being careful with metal arms, that I sometimes held but the air. And him holding me I could not feel through the intricate thickness, and weight, of my new-metal shell. But our conversation continued in tears, unlessened, under the garish picnic sky, amidst the holiday noise and the wild movements of dancers I had set whirling in a false try at being gay.
So the man from the pulpit had come! The soul gatherer, the crier out for the Light. Was it true that he brought me only the tears for a message? I had expected that when he came he would bring a long sermon and perhaps harsh admonishment for the turn I had taken to steel. And surely there would be words about a long road back. But we merely cried for awhile there together, like two entirely lost shipmates, and nothing at all was said. Then he moved out after awhile and at the very far edge of
my Stronghold just before the last, open gate he turned and his lips formed, “Brother!” although with my ears on VERY HIGH I swear I heard no sound. But I made the same word at him and all at once he was gone, a beautiful flesh-form walking, naked, striding the homeless plastic. Or was it but a reflection, and truly he was upside down in the sky?
I turned on a few more dancers, put fresh balloons through the roof and placed the Big Noise HIGH-HIGH. Then in my own personal Area of Silence, amidst all the noise and the havoc of the steel dancers, I suddenly remembered that it was near to two-hundred years, two-hundred steel-driven years, since I had last seen my twin brother, the preacher, the man who had staked it all on the strength of the big Paper Shield. Well, how had he fared with the War? Why was he walking naked now along our plastic-yard-sheet ground? And why did he, the man of Faith, a prince of the long war fought in the change-winds on the doubt-swept plains of bad souls, bring me only a message of tears? Sorrow to sorrow? Was he telling me how sorry he was at my condition, each new-metal part of me but a faucet to turn on his tears? Or was he trying to say that sorrow and doubt were all, after all, either his way or mine? Had my brother not found, had he truly not found more than a Shadow in the shade of his big Paper Shield? Had he leaned it against a stone one time out there in a big showdown for souls, taking a breather, and had old Satan seized that shield and run laughing?
The message was unclear. . . .
But as so often happens with me, from the Low Valley some toughness hurled me aloft, my fears put out their fight banners once again and doubts stood up long spear points to the air; weak knees that had but a moment before seemed not capable of even a decent stance drove forward and were brave. YES! we shut off the holiday and thumbed dead all the steel dancers. The gun lids closed out their carnival and the soft cellophane eagles collapsed in the rainbow air, even as we turned it all to a darkness. Since we lived, since we existed, we would act and play out the game. YES! that’s what we did. With almost no warning at all we declared war on all the roundabout Strongholds, and soon amidst the stern havoc, the hard contest demands and all the real problems of carnage, there was not time for either doubt, ghosts, or fears.
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